The Blood Between Us
by phteven
Summary: Blood is thicker than water. Harry and Caden Potter believed it. They let nothing get between them, and their parents; not fame, friends, nor separate houses. But, with the added pressure of the Tri-Wizard Tournament, could their fourth year change that?


_The one with the power to vanquish the Dark Lord approaches…_

_Born to those who have thrice defied him, born as the seven the month dies…_

_And the Dark Lord will mark him as his equal…_

Prophecy by S. P. T to A. P. W. B. D, May 1980  
Courtesy of the Department of Mysteries

* * *

_October 31, 1981  
The Potterer's Cottage, Godric's Hollow_

It had been a while since the Potter household had been this quiet.

With twin boys below the age of two, and three very rambunctious friends as their father and 'uncles', Lily Potter had almost forgotten what silence sounded like. But now, she feared it. Who knows what creatures could be lurking where no one could hear them.

Every Creak that their little cottage made, the sound of the wind or rain against the windows, the hoot of a nearby owl startled her. It had made sleeping very difficult, and even though she took countless dreamless sleep draughts, she was still scraping through with barely more than four hours of sleep at night.

Britain was stuck in an invisible war, invisible at least to the majority of its people. The Muggle Newspapers constantly had headlines about another group of people turning up dead, with no signs of suffering or struggle. Muggles were living through troubled times, not truly knowing the reason for these strange deaths, and just how close to home it was. Lord Voldemort, the most powerful dark wizard that had ever been.

There was a silver lining, though. Voldemort would only come for their world once he first held the Wizarding world firmly in his grip. Should Albus Dumbledore and the Order of the Phoenix find a way to prevent that, _millions_ of lives would be saved, but none of them would ever know it. Invisible.

For the time being, James, Lily, Harry and Caden Potter were hidden under a _fidelius_ charm. Nobody, besides their secret keeper, knew where they were. And it was all because of that damned prophecy. Soon after they were made known of it, Dumbledore got word of a plot that endangered the Potters.

"_I feel that this is the best option," Albus sighed, leaning forward in his chair to rest his arms on the dining table, around which sat the Potters and Longbottoms. "Tom is nearly at full power. We are nowhere nearer to defeating him now than when we were six months ago, and I fear it will be sometime before we find a way to do so. We know that Voldemort knows the beginning of the prophecy, and he will stop at nothing to find out who this foretold boy is. Minerva has looked over the names inscribed in the 1991 school entrants, and your boys are the only ones who could possibly fall in the right timeframe for both birth and the parents' defiance of Tom. You must hide until we find a way to defeat him. Enough lives have been lost in this fight."_

The Longbottoms' son, Neville, was born late in the evening of the 30th of July, 1980. Harry and Caden Potter a few short hours later, on the 31st of July, 1980. _As the seventh month dies._ Albus urged them over and over to go into hiding for their own safety. James and Lily did so reluctantly; they did not want their friends to be out fighting for them, risking their own safety while they sat in the shadows, never truly knowing what was going on.

James and Lily had hoped to bring Harry up in the Potter family manor, just outside of Godric's Hollow. However, when the threat against them had become known, the family moved into The Potterer's Cottage, a property that had been purchased as overflow accommodation for guests, but hadn't been used since before James was born. They hoped that by hiding in plain sight, they could avoid Voldemort's forces for long enough to survive this war. The abilities of magic meaning that if they weren't at the family home, they could have been anywhere.

That had been not long after Christmas, 1980. After spending the Christmas season with their closest friends, the _fidelius_ was set, with James' schoolboy friend Peter Pettigrew as the secret keeper. He was the only one who was able to tell people where the cottage in Godric's Hollow was, the effects of the _fidelius_ meaning that everybody else were oblivious to its location until either Peter told them, or the charm was broken completely.

It was another tactical move by the Potters. James and Peter were no longer as close as they had been during their school days, but they could still be considered friends, especially since they were all a part of the Order. However, nobody would expect the Potters to choose him over Remus Lupin or Sirius Black who were still regarded by James as his brothers. Hopefully, that would throw off anybody who came searching.

A bang of thunder caused Lily to jerk awake in bed. She _had_ taken a sleeping draught before going to bed that night, and so there was no reason for her to be awake at that moment.

She tried her best to relax, laying back down in bed and listening to the patter of rain on the roof of the cottage. After laying for five minutes, and still with a raging heartbeat, she rose and went into the bathroom to get a glass of water. She began to gulp down the liquid, until a tickle, like a wave passing through her, caused her to drop the glass.

Then the gate swung shut with a dull thud.

Then the front door was blown off its hinges.

"Lily!" James yelped as he all but jumped out of bed. "Take the boys and go!"

"James, does this mean that-"

"There's no time for that now! It's him! Get out of here! Run! I'll hold him off!"

"I love you!" Lily cried out as James left to confront the intruder. The Dark Lord. Voldemort.

* * *

Jumping down the stairs, James came face to face with the most powerful dark wizard known to anyone.

"Good evening, Tom," James said as he held his wand up, "To what do I owe the pleasure? You do realise that tonight will be the fourth time I defy you, don't you?"

Voldemort's red eyes glowed ominously, shining through the shadows that his hooded robes cast over his face. "You take me for a fool, James Potter. Three times pure luck has let you escape with your lives, but you will not get another chance. I will get what I have come here for, and neither you or your silly little mudblood wife will be able to stop me."

"You won't get to them," James grunted in anger at the slur and crouched into a duelling stance. "Over my dead body."

The dark wizard laughed, "As you wish."

With a point of his wand, a sickly green flash raced towards the Auror. He had been expecting nothing less and managed to dive away in the nick of time. The spell whizzed past and hit the wall behind him, leaving a large, black scorch mark.

"You'll have to do better than that, Tom. I catch Dark Wizards like you for a living. I know all your little tricks."

"Oh, is that so? _Accio._"

Looking back on that night, James would say he hadn't known that trick, nor had he expected the flying dining room table to smack him in the back of the head, knocking him out instantly.

* * *

"Hush, my boys. Mama's right here," Lily cooed, trying to calm the two teary twins. Their rude awakening at the sound of the front door exploding had given them such a fright that they had made their cot begin to float in a bout of accidental magic. After making sure the cot was securely grounded, she cast a C_olloportus_ to lock the door and returned to comforting the boys.

As it would seem, Lily's locking charm was no match against Voldemort's _Bombarda_, which effortlessly turned the door into splinters. Lily backed up against the crib, using her arms to shield the boys, who had all of a sudden stopped crying.

"No, please! Not my boys," she began to cry out, "Kill me instead."

"Your dear friend, Severus, asked me to spare you," he spoke cordially, slowly twirling his phoenix feather wand as he edged closer to the crib. "Because of his usefulness in getting me here tonight, and the surety of my success, I shall honour my vow to him. Step aside and live. Join me. Join Severus."

"You think I would join you and _Snivellus_?" She yelled through her tears, "You truly are a madman."

"You have one last chance, foolish girl. Move."

With a growl and gnashed teeth, Lily ran at the Dark Lord, ready to use muggle hand-to-hand combat to beat him, but Voldemort's spell casting was much more efficient. He fired off a silent killing curse, aimed towards the redhead's heart. Time seemed to slow down as he waited for the silence, so he could finally finish what he came here to do.

* * *

Outside, Peter Pettigrew waited silently for his master to return. In his animagus form, a brown rat, nobody would suspect anything of him. His patience turned to fear as a bright golden light lit up the night, the whole right wing of the home exploding in a flash of magic.

The rat whimpered, before scurrying into the home. He returned back to his human form and took out his wand. Scouting out the small living and dining area, he saw the unconscious body of James Potter beside the upturned dining table. More interested in searching for his master than caring for his former friend, Peter instead went up to the nursery, and nearly cried at the sight.

His master lay on the floor in front of the twins' cradle, his eyes lacking the ominous red glow that they usually possessed. His body still sizzled from _whatever_ the explosion was, wisps of smoke floated into the air from his cloak. The boys appeared to have also joined The Dark Lord in losing their lives. The Rat dared not check to see if they were truly dead. If two helpless infants had slain the all-powerful Dark Lord, then he would surely suffer a fate worse than death, and he preferred the land of the living anyway.

Peter jumped as a siren resounded through the street. With the _fidelius_ now well and truly broken, the cottage -and its subsequent explosion- would have been visible to all the neighbours living in the quaint village. Scarpering off to a nearby sewer drain, Wormtail left the home, as the neighbours began to fill the street, investigating the loud bang that would have awoken them. Soon, Aurors and Obliviators would be turning up to clean up the mess of it all. They would easily find James's unconscious body in the dining room, along with the bodies of his family and the dead Dark Lord in the nursery. From then on, it wouldn't take long for him to be found out as a traitor. He whimpered once again, knowing all too that well he would go to Azkaban, if not given a Dementor's kiss, for his part in the night's events. He would have to disappear.

Thankfully, it was easy for a rat to do so.

* * *

_The early hours of November 1, 1981_

_Headmaster's Office, Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry._

"Thank you for taking us in, Albus. Lily and I are grateful for all your help with everything, even though it didn't quite work out exactly to plan." James gently bounced Caden in his arms, trying to calm him after Madame Pomfrey's examination of his new beauty mark.

Albus Dumbledore smiled at his young friend. "No need for thanks, James. It is the least I could do. More than enough lives have been lost in the war, and yours didn't need to be added to the long list."

"Why did he spare us?" Asked Lily, as she held a sleeping Harry.

"I cannot say for sure. Perhaps he saw it as a show of power that he did not need to kill you to kill your boys." He paused, before standing from his seat and enveloping the family in a hug. "But, let us not dwell on what could have been. Let us instead celebrate that all four of you are safe, barring a few minor injuries which will easily be repaired by Poppy."

The mediwitch had looked over the two boys, both of whom now sported painful cuts on their foreheads. Caden had a sideways 'V' on his left temple, and Harry a lightning bolt shaped mark above his right eyebrow. James had suffered a concussion, as a result of the table hitting him in the back of the head. Lily, amazingly, was unblemished and had no ill-effects from passing out in the nursery, aside from some memory loss of that evening.

Dumbledore walked up to James. Caden, after the fuss he was previously making, was now sitting calmly in his father's arms. He smiled at the aged professor as he approached, showing off his growing mouth of teeth.

"May I?" Albus asked, indicating to the one-year old's head. James nodded, allowing him to brush back the child's red hair to inspect the cut. He then did the same with Harry, mumbling to himself the whole time.

"The prophecy has been enacted." He finally said out loud.

James and Lily shared a look of concern.

"A prophecy is almost worthless when it is first spoken. It is simply a string of words with no impact whatsoever, which often leads to many prophecies being ignored and forgotten. However, as soon as a prophecy is acted upon, which Lord Voldemort has done in coming for your family tonight, the prophecy becomes destined to be carried to completion. Lord Voldemort began the works of Madame Trelawny's prophecy by attempting to kill Caden tonight and marking him with this wound. Caden, in accordance with said prophecy, fulfilled the rest and vanquished the Dark Lord."

"How can you be sure?"

Albus once again indicated to the scar on Caden's temple. "It represents 'Kenaz', the rune for 'torch'. He is the one that has brought light to the darkness by ridding this world of Lord Voldemort. It is highly likely that he survived the killing curse, as that is what Voldemort was out to do."

James held tightly onto the said boy, who was oblivious to the role that he had played, and the title he now possessed.

Sweeping Harry's dark hair off his face, Lily looked at the wound on his forehead. "And what about Harry's?"

"I cannot recognise any runic resemblance. It must simply be a wound that he sustained in the explosion of the nursery," the aged wizard replied with a grim smile and a short twinkle in his eyes. "Yet, still painful nonetheless."

For a fraction of a second, his eyes met Madame Pomfrey's confused ones as she turned to leave.

* * *

As morning dawned, Britain woke to golden sunlight covering the land, brighter than any other sunrise for many years. The rumours of the events in Godric's Hollow spread rapidly, and soon, the whole nation knew the great news of the death of the Dark Lord, at the hands of a mere child.

That day, they toasted to Caden Evan Potter, the Boy-Who-Lived.


End file.
